


It’s in His Kiss

by BeccaAnne814



Series: Christmas/New Year’s Stories [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 20:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeccaAnne814/pseuds/BeccaAnne814
Summary: Natasha can't seem to get the brief kiss she shared with Steve while on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. out of her mind. Using New Year's Eve as a cover, she'll find out if there’s more between them than just friendship. Based off A Bland Marvel Headcanon and Betty Everett's song,It's in His Kiss.





	It’s in His Kiss

Natasha glanced around the crowded mall from the descending escalator. There were at least a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents surrounding them, and Rumlow was on the opposite escalator heading right for her and Steve. 

Turning around quickly, she looked up at Steve and demanded, "Kiss me."

"What?" he asked in confusion. 

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," she explained in a hurry. 

"Yes, they do," Steve agreed, still not taking the hint. 

Taking matters into her own hands, she reached up and pulled his face closer to hers as she fitted her lips to his. She only hoped her plan would work, and that Rumlow wouldn't look too closely and realize it was them. 

Steve was shocked when Nat kissed him, but it soon faded and he found himself grabbing ahold of her waist to steady himself. The woman sure knew how to kiss. 

Reluctantly pulling away, she turned and looked back toward the bottom of the escalator. If Steve questioned her, she'd just tell him she was looking out for more threats, but it would've been a lie. The truth was, she was completely floored by the kiss and needed a moment to compose herself. 

"You still uncomfortable?"she asked, trying to lighten the mood. 

"It's not exactly the word I would use," Steve replied as they reached the ground floor and headed toward an exit. 

She'd kept her mouth shut when Steve had casually walked up to a blue Chevy Silverado and forced the door open. She watched in awe as he pulled some wires from beneath the dash and wound two together causing the engine to turn over. Giving her a smug look, he hit the unlock button. She quickly made her way to the passenger seat, propping her feet up on the dash as he drove out of the mall parking lot toward the interstate. 

"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car," she asked once she was sure they hadn't been followed. 

With his eyes still on the road, he replied, "Nazi Germany."

She gave a noncommittal reply and he turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "And we're borrowing – take your feet off the dash."

She gave him a little smirk and did as he asked, but he'd turned to look back at the road. "Alright, I have a question for you." He glanced at her briefly and she quickly added, "Oh, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it, though, you're kinda answering it, you know."

"What?" he asked, obviously irritated with her. 

With a huge grin she asked, "Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

Steve didn't even bother to look at her. "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that," Nat quickly clarified. 

"Well, it kinda sounds like what you're saying."

On the defensive now, she replied, "No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"You don't need practice," he argued. 

"Everybody needs practice," she disagreed. 

"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."

She quickly looked out the window to hide her reaction. Was she jealous?  Putting her mask of indifference back on, she turned and smiled at him. "Nobody special, though?"

He let out a short bark of laughter. "Believe it or not, but it's kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well, that's alright, you just make something up."

"What, like you?"he turned and looked her in the eye for the first time since they'd kissed. 

"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all of the time." She paused for a moment before adding, "And neither am I."

He was still looking at her with a sad expression on his face when he said, "That's a tough way to live."

She thought about his words before replying. "It's a good way not to die, though."

"You know, it's kinda hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone is."

Natasha turned and looked at him, really looked at him. For the first time since she'd met him, she had no defenses up, no mask in place to hide her true feelings. "Yeah." Thinking about her next words carefully, she asked, "Who do you want me to be?"

"How 'bout a friend?"

She looked away and smiled as she tried not to let his words get to her. Why was she so disappointed in his answer?  Didn't she want to be his friend?  Maybe, she realized, she wanted to be more. "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."

Steve pulled up to the abandoned Army base, ending their conversation.  

 

Looking back on their time at the base, it was a blur with the missiles and explosions knocking her for a loop. The one thing she did remember was Steve shielding her with his own body as the building collapsed down on top of them. It was Steve that had pulled her from the rubble and got her to safety. Now she was in some strange man's apartment, but she didn't feel like she was in any danger –  not with a Steve right there beside her. 

He met her eyes in the bathroom mirror as he finished trying to clean himself off. Worried about the haunted look in her eyes, he asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she answered, although she knew she was lying to herself. Everything she'd ever believed had just been ripped out from underneath her, and other than the man standing in front of her right now, there was no one she thought she could trust. 

Steve could tell that she was lying, but he didn't blame her. Taking a seat in front of her, he asked, "What's going on?"

Realizing that he could see right through her, she decided to to finally be honest with him for the first time. "When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., I thought I was going straight." She paused for a moment as the weight of her next words settled upon her conscious. "But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA."

She met his eyes briefly before looking back down at her hands, trying to keep control of her emotions. "I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but I guess I can't tell the difference anymore." Her gaze came back to him as she put a sardonic grin on her face. 

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," he replied, throwing her earlier words back at her. 

She laughed for a minute before she realized that he was absolutely right. Her gaze turning serious again, she told him, "I owe you."

He furrowed his brow and shook his head. "It's okay."

"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life – now you be honest with me – would you trust me to do it?" She waited for him to answer, knowing that the next words out of his mouth would be the most important thing he'd ever say to her. 

With the most sincere expression on his face, he replied, "I would now."  He waited to see how she would react, and when the shocked look on her face didn't disappear, he added, "And I'm always honest."

She let his words sink in as she started to smile.  "Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they'd died for nothing."

Steve leaned back and looked out the window behind her.  "I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting."

Nat took a moment to study him as he sat there in nothing but a pair of jeans and a filthy, no-longer-white, ribbed tank.  She felt like she'd learned more about him in the last few hours than she had in the last few years.  Remembering the kiss they'd shared less than twenty-four hours ago, she realized that she wanted to try it again to see if it would carry the same weight now that they weren't in a life or death situation.

"I made breakfast," Sam said from the doorway, effectively killing the mood.  Sensing that he'd interrupted something, he added awkwardly, "If you guys eat that sort of thing."

 

Nat had thought about that day over and over again in the months following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.  She'd been scared that she'd never get the chance to see if there was anything between her and Steve once they were on the run for their lives again.  Too many times in the days following the attack at Camp Lehigh, she and Steve had been mere inches away from death.  She'd told herself that if they lived through it, she'd figure out a way to find out if what she'd felt for him that day was just adrenaline, or something more.

Now, as she walked along the busy streets of Manhattan with the remnants of Christmas still adorning the storefronts, she thought about the past few months.  She'd tried to read him – to see if her suspicions about him were true, but even though he was a horrible liar, he could mask his emotions when he needed to.  Sure, there had been a few glances her way that had made her wonder, a few casual brushes of his fingertips on her arm, and the occasional hand on the small of her back as they walked in the same direction, but nothing concrete to let her know that these feelings weren't just one-sided.  

As she neared the Tower, she made up her mind to find out once and for all if her reaction to his kiss had been a fluke, or if they actually had feelings for one another.  It was New Year's Eve, and, of course, Tony was throwing a party.  Under the guise of the holiday, she'd make sure that Steve Rogers was standing by her side when the clock struck twelve.

 

She'd considered overindulging on the alcohol to give her some courage come midnight, but she'd ultimately decided that she wanted a clear head when her moment finally arrived.  Keeping Steve in her sights, she'd mingled around the room, always making sure to end up by his side several times throughout the night.  

By the time midnight neared, she could see him looking around the room for her.  Taking this as a good sign, she made her way across the room towards him, absentmindedly handing her still-full glass of champagne to a passing waiter.  She wanted both hands free for when she finally had him back in her grasp.

"There you are," he said with a smile as she came up beside him.

"Miss me?" she asked, studying his eyes to gauge the truth of his answer.

He smiled and started to say something, but never got the chance as everyone in the room began counting down to the new year.  As the counting neared its end, she reached up and laid a hand along his jaw, turning his head toward her.  She paused for a moment, giving him have a chance to refuse.  When his hand came to rest on her waist, she stood on her tiptoes and pulled him closer to her.

Their kiss on the escalator had been too spontaneous, and too brief as they'd been on the run for their lives.  Now, they had the luxury to take their time, to really get a feel for one another.  She wasn't sure if he'd been sneaking quickies with Tony's interns in the supply closets, or if he was just that good of a kisser, but within a few moments, she was completely plete lost in his kiss.

When he finally pulled away, he ran a finger down her cheek.  "Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

Giving him a smirk, she asked, "Are you uncomfortable right now?"

"You're not?"

Still wrapped in his arms, with her eyes glued to his, she said, "Take a look around you, Rogers.  No one is paying the least bit of attention to us."

He did as she'd instructed and looked around the room and was pleasantly surprised to see that she was right.  Everyone else was too wrapped up in their own celebrations to give them a second thought.  Meeting her gaze again, he leaned in and kissed her once more.

"Still think I need practice?" he asked when they'd come up for air the second time.

"Maybe," she teased, shrugging her shoulders and giving him a sly grin.

"You offering to tutor me?"

"I mean, I guess I could, if you're that worried about it," she said, one corner of her mouth lifting in a flirty smile as she started to lead him out of the room.

He gave her a stern look.  "You know, Romanoff, if you really wanted to kiss me again, all you had to do was ask."

"I prefer a more direct approach," she said as she lifted her hand to trace the outline of his jaw.

"You sure took your time, though, didn't you?" he asked as he pushed the button to call the elevator.

The smile fell from her face as a look of disbelief replaced it.  "You're one to talk.  You could have made a move at any point. . ."

"Now, would that have been the gentlemanly thing to do?" he asked as laid a hand at the small of her back and guided her into the elevator.  

"Maybe I don't want a gentleman."

"Maybe I'm not the gentleman you think I am," he said as pushed her back against the wall of the elevator, causing her mouth to fall open in surprise.  He pressed his body against hers, pinning her beneath his weight as he leaned down to capture her lips with his again.

Reveling in this new side of him, she let herself be carried away by his passionate embrace.  She guessed it was true what they said – if you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> _Happy New Year!!! I hope you enjoyed this story! I know I usually write Reader Insert Fanfiction, but I saw this Headcanon a few months ago, and I just knew I needed to write this story! One of my favorite things to do is to go back to the original dialogue from the movies and add my own interpretations to their body language to make the story move in the direction I want it to go. When I first watched The Winter Soldier, I was a diehard RomanRogers shipper, and I was so mad when they started developing the relationship between her and Bruce in AoU. But that’s why we have fanfiction, right? We get the chance to go back and rewrite it the way we want it to be. How did you like Steve’s reaction to her comment at the end? I’m a firm believer that Steve Rogers isn’t as vanilla as everyone thinks he is! (͡° ͜ʖ ͡ ) I look forward to your comments!_


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